


my whole sky

by peculiarblue



Category: Mean Girls - Richmond/Benjamin/Fey
Genre: 'spacy' pt 2, Domestic Fluff, F/F, Future Fic, These Two Deserve the World, writing about karen giggling at janis is my specialty now
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-26
Updated: 2018-09-02
Packaged: 2019-06-16 11:54:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15436503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peculiarblue/pseuds/peculiarblue
Summary: If you had told Janis 10 years ago that she would one day buy an apartment on a whim with her ex-best friend and be in love with her while she did it, she’d probably punch you in the face.(or, how janis was sure she hated everything in the world except for karen smith part two, only this time- all grown up and sharing a bed with her)





	1. french vanilla

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Spacy](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15328080) by [peculiarblue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/peculiarblue/pseuds/peculiarblue). 



> this is my fluffy yet grown up continuation of my story 'spacy', where i got these two together, totally don't need to read it first but it's cute and fun and how i imagine these stupidly in love angels getting their start ok bye enjoy.
> 
> also, guys janis and karen are the freakin cutest sorry i don't make the rules 
> 
> once i got them together, they only existed in my mind as happy beautiful blissfully domestic twenty-something year old gays so that's how i got to this. you're welcome
> 
> thank you for letting me indulge in my guilty pleasure ship i will not stop until they get the recognition they deserve feel free to send ideas, i love writing this yay

 

* * *

 

 

“And then, like, out of nowhere, she trips right in front of me in the middle of the song!”

 

“But, lemme guess, the show must go on?”

 

“Ignoring your sarcastic tone, but yes, I picked her up gently like the nice heterosexual high school student I’m supposed to be and she’s bringing me donuts tomorrow for saving her ass. Literally.”

 

“I still don’t get why you would ever relive high school every night by choice, but the free donuts was a good move,” Janis smirks as she talks to Damian on the phone, all while dodging between busy New York street traffic and balancing two cups of coffee and her phone in her hands.

 

“Living the dream, Damian Hubbard as ‘Student #6’, coming to a city near you soon,” he sighs, and she can hear his melodramatic slurp of his iced coffee on the other end of the line.

 

Janis smiles thinking about her best friend, still glued to her hip after high school and college and internships and their first crappy apartment together and even miles and miles away as he tours in the ensemble of a Broadway national tour company and she gets promoted to her first real job at a fashion magazine.

 

Just your favorite gay best friends killing the game… on low incomes and spotty cell service.

 

“Oh, c’mon, I loved your work in that one scene where, if I moved my head to the right just enough, I could see you behind that snotty rich boy actor singing about the love of his life.”

 

“Shut up, I know my fame is hard for you to bear.”

 

“So hard,” she laughs, and tucks the phone under her ear and on her shoulder to have a free hand to open a door, “But I am ridiculously proud of you and am so close to having enough money to buy tickets to see you again.”

 

“You’ve been close for like 8 months.”

 

“Well, uh, I was actually close, but uh,” she is running out of hands to use to find the keys in her bag that’s slung over her shoulder, “something came up. But I’ll be really close again soon, promise.”

 

“Ohhhhh-kay, sketchball, we’re pretending like you’re not hiding something from me,” Damian edges reluctantly over the phone, “But for when you’re almost close again, I’m sending you the dates I’m in my next city. One of them I’m supposed to be on as an understudy for the lead, which, in terms you can understand means, you won’t have to squint to see me on stage.”

 

“Ah, fuck!”

 

“Okay, rude.”

 

“Not you, idiot. I dropped my coffees.” Janis curses under her breath again as she tries to dodge the growing pool of liquid caffeine around her feet.

 

“Coffees,” Damian blurts.

 

“Yes?”

 

“You said coffees, not coffee, meaning you had two.”

 

“Yes.” Janis grits out of annoyance, her perfectly good $8 wasted on coffee for nothing.

 

“And I call you at this time every day because I know you’re on your way home from work and you like to look busy on your phone so you don’t need to interact with other people.”

 

“Damian, where is this going?” She huffs, then flits her eyes up to see a man from the lobby come rushing over with some paper towels. She sports a smile and thanks him incessantly as he calls for a janitor with a mop.

 

“You’re on your way home with two cups of coffee…” Damian trails.

 

Jains stands up after wiping some coffee away and thanks the men again who assure her they will take care of the rest of the mess for her, before running up the three flights of stairs, not having the patience in her anger to wait for an elevator.

 

“Still not seeing your point.” But she definitely does, totally definitely does. Doesn’t know how he figured it out so quickly.

 

“Janis Sarkisian, I believe you have something to tell your dear and wonderful best friend right this instant,” he says, trying to hide the squealing excitement in his voice, as he hears Janis turn her keys in the door with a jingle then slam it shut.

 

She walks into her apartment, throws her bag down in annoyance and kicks off her shoes next to the rows of brown moving boxes lining the front entrance. She rounds the corner and peeks into the living room, empty except for a lone mattress and the pretty blonde girl laying on it with her hair fanned out behind her.

 

“Yeah, about that, Damian. I may or may not have done a thing.”

 

* * *

 

If you had told Janis 10 years ago, as she walked into high school with blood boiling for revenge against her ex-best friends, that she would one day buy an apartment on a whim with one of said ex-best friends, she would have a very hard time believing you. If you added that she’d be in love with said ex-best friend while she did it, she’d probably punch you in the face.

 

But here she was, hopping to lay down on a little mattress that was acting as a makeshift all-purpose couch/bed/kitchen table in an apartment she now owned with Karen Smith.

 

Un-fucking-believeable.

 

“No coffee today?”

 

“Dropped it.”

 

“You’re not a happy camper without your coffee after work.”

 

“Well,” Janis rolls over on her side, propped up on her elbow facing Karen, who squirms to face her back, “something about these pretty blue eyes I’m looking into is helping.”

 

“Who are you and what have you done with my ‘I-hate-feelings’ girlfriend?”

 

“Damian’s starting to rub off on me,” She says with a shrug and Karen laughs a she scoots over to tuck her head under Janis’s chin and feels an arm wrap around her waist.

 

“Now that we’re here, is there really anything stopping us from moving from this exact spot for the rest of forever?” Karen giggles.

 

Janis is so sure her heart could explode right now and she wouldn’t be the least bit mad.

 

“I would not argue with that.”

 

Karen lets out a little happy sigh and wraps a finger around some of Janis’s hair. Yep. There it goes, heart explosion.

 

“I may be dumb but this is my favorite stupid decision I’ve ever made.”

 

“Which one? Buying this apartment or agreeing to date me for this long? Because that was a real stupid one,” Janis retorts with a smirk.

 

“Ah, she’s back.”

 

They let a few moments pass in blissful quiet, Janis can feel Karen’s heart beat against her and wonders if Karen can feel the same, knowing the way her heart can’t handle the unreal cuteness that is her life right now. They’ve made it a long way, beat the odds, and Janis can really only count 4 times she panicked and questioned her existence and contemplated almost chickening out of the whole thing altogether. (And considering how much of a disaster Janis is in life in general, those odds seem pretty good.)

 

But when she looks down at the girl laying next to her, she remembers the large emphasis on _almost_. She places a light kiss on her forehead and knows she sure as hell is not letting this one get away.

 

She sits up from their thin mattress on the hardwood floor and holds Karen’s hand, who still lays next to her.

 

“I know we just had a really sweet moment and everything, but I’m actually really mad about my lack of coffee.”

 

Karen laughs and sits up, using her free hand to stroke Janis’s hair, “Oh, I know. This really is a new record for you. So proud.”

 

Janis feigns hurt and hits Karen on the shoulder as she pulls them both to standing, “For real, I felt so accomplished. I think I actually got your order right for the first time.”

 

“Really?”

 

“Really.” Karen looks at Janis with her big blue eyes under her long lashes with a look that tells Janis she knows she definitely got it wrong again. Janis throws her hands up and starts to storm towards the door, “God, do you have no faith in me? I’ve had, like, how many years now to learn it?”

 

“Do you really think I’m keeping count?”

 

Janis turns, grabbing her keys and trying not to laugh, “Don’t be stupid cute when I’m mad.”

 

“Well, I’m always stupid, and I’m always cute!” Karen says with a bubbly look in her eyes, and strides up to Janis with a smirk, trapping her against the door.

 

Faces less than inches apart, Janis doesn’t feel herself instinctively bit her bottom lip and flit her eyes down towards Karen’s. Karen moves a hand down Janis’s body and presses the other on the door by Janis’s head.

 

“How’d you know I was wrong? I didn’t even tell you what I ordered.”

 

“You’re thinking about my coffee order at a time like this?”

 

“It’s important information,” Janis shrugs, her face heating up and her breath getting caught in her throat as Karen gets closer.

 

Karen smirks, then presses her lips to Janis’s softly, quickly, then with their faces still touching, Janis’s breath and control seemingly nonexistent, Karen says, barely above a whisper, “I could smell the hazelnut on you before. I like French vanilla.”

 

And then in an instant Janis stumbles backwards as she feels the door swing open behind her, never noticing Karen’s hand move to grip the door handle behind them.

 

Karen laughs loudly as she steps out ahead of Janis, who feels like forgetting heart explosions because this was surely a full body explosion, her blonde hair swinging behind her.

 

Janis shakes her head and closes the door before starting to catch up with Karen, who has already skipped down the hall, and she mumbles, “Of course, my girlfriend likes fucking French vanilla.”

 

* * *

 

They’re back in the apartment by sunset, after Janis finally learns Karen’s exact coffee order and they sit on a park bench picking out all the dogs they’re going to adopt one day as they watch thousands of people walk by and then run to the nearest pizza place because they’re starving and totally earned it after a day of big life steps (like buying an apartment and memorizing what kind of coffee your girlfriend likes, you know, the kind of monumental life moments you always dream about.)

 

The empty pizza box lays on the floor next to their mattress, the only furniture they’ve secured, so Janis picks it up and brings it to the kitchen. After sending Damian the ‘break-a-leg’ text she’s sent every single night he goes on stage, she walks back into her living room starting to say, “So, I looked up the cheapest places to buy a couch, because we’re probably gonna need one of those soon, and—” but stops when she looks up from her phone and sees the room is empty. “Kare?”

 

Janis is met with erupting giggling coming from the room down the hall, their bedroom. She starts to walk down the small, dim path and peeks her head around the door frame, “Karen, what’s going—” but Janis stops herself again, this time because she can’t speak with a smile so wide, when she sees Karen, in her skimpy pajamas and penguin fuzzy socks, sliding around the empty room with her hands in the air, only stopping when she catches herself with the wall.

 

Karen laughs and waves at Janis in the doorway, who leans against the doorframe, arms crossed and head tilted before sending a little wave back.

 

“Heart eyes cat emoji, I have always wanted to do this, but never had a completely empty room before!” She giggles as she slides again.

 

Janis lets out a dramatic sigh of relief, “Oh thank god, thought I lost you for a sec.”

 

Karen sends her a puzzled look.

 

“I was afraid all this adult-ing stuff broke you, I mean, you didn’t use one emoji all day.”

 

“Well,” Karen says with a twinkle in her eye and slides over to Janis, “Cactus emoji, sunshine emoji, pink heart emoji.”

 

“Yeah, yeah, I love you too.” Janis chuckles, with a wave of her hand.

 

“Actually, I said there’s more fuzzy socks in my box in the kitchen and if you don’t join me in sliding around our beautifully empty apartment right now, I’m not making out with you before bed.”

 

Janis’s face turns bright red as Karen swings her hair with a smirk, but Janis has been blushing in the face of Karen Smith long enough to be able to retort with, “ _Just_ making out?”

 

Now it’s Karen’s turn to gape and blush. She squirms in her spot before pushing Janis out of the room, and with that look on her face, Janis needs no further reason to run across their tiny apartment and put on Karen’s fuzzy socks.

 

When she slides back into the room, changed into her usual pajama look of nothing but a huge paint-splattered t-shirt, and some bright orange fuzzy socks, Karen stares.

 

“Okay, babe, not fair!”

 

“What, wrong socks?” Janis innocently brushes down the hem of her shirt and looks at her feet.

 

“No,” Karen sighs, “You can’t come in here looking like that because now I wanna skip the fun fuzzy sock party and get to our tiny mattress as quick as possible and have sex.”

 

“Woah, okay, tell us how you really feel.” Janis chuckles.

 

“Stop, I’m seriously gonna die if you don’t get your hot body over here right now and kiss me.”

 

Janis smirks and with a little slide in her socks, swoops over to Karen and wraps her arms around her waist, Karen catching Janis around her neck.

 

“Slight warning, I probably still have pizza breath.”

 

“As long as it’s not hazelnut.”

 

Janis catches the giggle as it comes out of Karen’s lips with her own, not wasting any time being gentle, because has she mentioned yet how hot her girlfriend is? She moves her lips fast, hands traveling down her back, pulling Karen closer in space that doesn’t exist because they’re already practically in each other. Karen responds just as fast and hard (and hot), draping her tongue across Janis’s bottom lip before entering, catching a moan in the back of her throat as they keep going. Janis feels her insides turning to mush feels like she could collapse into a puddle if her whole body didn’t feel so on fire and then dammit Karen moves her lips down her neck, slow and sweet but biting and _god_. Janis tries to remember how to breathe, but can’t, her hands gripping the very little fabric of Karen’s shirt she can find.

 

“Um, hey, yeah, maybe we could uh, _slide_ this over to our crappy mattress now?” Janis makes out between sharp breaths when Karen shows no signs of slowing this down. “Put these fuzzy socks to use?”

 

Karen flips her hair up and looks at Janis, who’s ready to collapse at the sight of those bright blues, more brilliant and shining than all the lights of the bustling city she can see out her window, more radiant and magnificent than every star she can’t see in the New York sky.

 

But she doesn’t find it in herself to care. These eyes and this girl (and that stupid giggle) are the whole sky to her.

 

“You are the best stupid decision I have ever made.”

 

* * *

 


	2. bestest perfectest

* * *

 

 

“Do you need to be so loud when you wake up in the morning?”

 

“You know, funny thing is, I’m not really used to having an audience,” Janis whips around from the kitchen sink to see Karen stumbling towards her, still half-asleep. She shrugs he shoulders and in her lowest whisper voice asks, “Is this better?”

 

Karen glares and leans her elbows on the counter, holding her head up with the little energy she has resting in her hands, “It is too early for you and your attitude, Sarkisian.”

 

“Yeah, well, it’s also too early for your whining, but you don’t see me complaining.”

 

“Janis, complaining is practically your first language.”

 

Janis quirks an eyebrow, “Okay fair.” She grabs her water bottle from the fridge and places it on the counter looking at Janis, “I could always just _not_ sleep with you anymore, sleep in the living room, not wake you up…”

 

“ _No.”_ Karen cries and Janis laughs.

 

“I don’t know, babe, sacrifice your human pillow for another one or two hours of sleep? Sounds fair to me,” Janis tilts her head with an innocent smile before laughing again and swinging her bag over her shoulder.

 

“That was probably the meanest thing you’ve ever suggested,” Karen stands to face Janis, “And don’t pretend like you don’t like cuddling too, you secret softie.”

 

“Well, I can think of other things I like better…” Janis slips her free hand around Karen’s waist and pulls her body flush against hers.

 

Karen tilts her head back with a breathy laugh as Janis smirks and tickles her fingers along her lower back, “Alrighty, you, go to work,” She pecks a quick kiss on her lips, “Be safe, I’ll see ya soon.”

 

“Right, I actually have a late meeting scheduled, might be a while, sorry,” Janis sighs.

 

“Well, then I think this calls for two goodbye kisses!” Janis squints her eyes and sticks her tongue out at her girlfriend’s cheesy remark, but it doesn’t deter Karen from placing a small kiss on her nose instead.

 

She backs up, trying to hide the smile on her face (such a softie, lately) and shoots little finger guns at the blonde as she says, “I’ll pick up dinner tonight?”

 

“Umbrella emoji, cactus emoji!” She waves before Janis shuts the door, “And don’t call me until like, 9, when I’m on my way to work, I’m going back to sleep now.”

 

Janis laughs as she retreats down the small hallway and out the building, not finding herself able to hate her morning commutes so much anymore.

 

Janis is still living in complete bewilderment that this is her life now. Sharing a home, and everything that comes with it, is totally wild. Yeah, she likes the fact that she comes home after work and isn’t alone to eat cold pizza and watch “The Office” (she can do that exact thing now, plus one), and she likes goodbye kisses and morning snuggles and the fact that when she sends her girlfriend her ‘on my way home’ text it’s going home to her.

 

But Janis’s real favorite things about living with Karen: the fact that she finished the shampoo the other night and was dreading going to the store to replace it, but came home the next day and Karen already had, not having to make the bed because Karen goes to work later and therefore is the last one in it, and always being able to make washing the dishes a two-man act.

 

And don’t think she doesn’t notice she’s quite possibly the luckiest girl on the face of the earth dating someone _so far_ out of her league. Dramatic? Maybe. But trying to walk away from _that_ this morning? Near impossible.

 

But unfortunately, domestic bliss can not survive on sheer happiness alone (though she suspects if she were to put a monetary value on this kind of next-level dreaminess, she’d break a million, at the very least). Karen, for all her good looks and little brainpower, found a way to put both to use, working at a daycare (the only place it is acceptable to not know how to spell orange, because toddlers only care if you’re nice and your hair is shiny) and running a rather successful fashion Instagram blog (which is no joke, even with perfect teeth and naturally shiny hair, and has turned Janis into a real Instagram husband.) Janis works as an art editor and columnist at a fashion magazine, still low-level but happy, and it pays the bills.

 

And from where she’s looking, even crossing the street in morning rush traffic as a jackass taxi almost runs into her, she’s kinda mad her life wasn’t always this awesome.

 

Nothing is really perfect yet, they’ve still got plenty in boxes and furniture barely consists of a bed and a folding table in the kitchen, the walls are bare except for some paint splatters in the corner where Janis’s art has set up makeshift shop, and their favorite thing to cook is left over takeout in the microwave.

 

But it’s home. Though Janis does realize they should invest in real furniture and décor sooner rather than later. They have tried to go shopping but Karen brings out the best ‘annoying little kid in a department store’ in Janis and they never leave with anything productive. So Janis tries to order curtains and silverware from Amazon on her work breaks.

 

Soon, she’s settled into her cubicle, spins around in the chair and waves good morning to her office neighbor James and opens her bag to look for the pink post-it note Karen left for her today. With a sneaky giggle, she pins it up with the fast-growing collection on her left panel.

 

_You don’t know it yet but your green sweatshirt is about to go missing. May or may not be found on me, in bed, when you get home…_

Janis can’t wait to get home.

 

* * *

 

 Janis loves her friends. She really does. She loves Damian more than words and loves that she still wears Caddy’s stupid friendship bracelet and talks to her all the time and loves more than anything that thanks to some random glitch in the universe she was able to keep her high school crush around close to a decade in the future.

 

But some days, Janis really wishes they all could have been like normal girls who drift apart after graduation and only meet up at thirty year reunions to see who went bald and who’s the richest.

 

And when Janis walks into her apartment that night, two bags of Chinese takeout in hand and the overwhelming aroma of Plastic around her, she thinks today is definitely one of those days.

 

“Janis is home!”

 

Janis plops down the bags and peeks out of the kitchen to see that no, this is not another one of those nightmares she gets when she falls asleep on her work desk, Regina George and Gretchen Wieners are, in fact, sitting in her living room.

 

“It’s about time, I’m starving,” Regina sighs, eyes wide and pushes past Janis to get to the bags of take-out, Gretchen mumbling something and following not far behind. “You know there’s a better place a few blocks over I always order from,” Regina quips, but spins lo mein around her fork anyway.

 

“Hello, Regina, Gretchen. Help yourself,” Janis grits with a half smile as Karen runs up with a giddy smile, then continues, “We’re lucky I order enough for myself to sustain the stomachs of probably six Gretchens.”

 

“Sorry, I would have called you but I got so excited, look what we did!” Karen squeals and points towards the living room, “Regina is like, _so_ good at in-vitro design, so she came over today to help me set it up!”

 

“Okay first—it’s _interior_ design, and second—I just could not let this place fall into the hands of Janis or we’d be using black as the base color, not the compliment, and that hasn’t been in since like 2007, or maybe never,” Regina muses over another bite of food.

 

Janis looks around the room, eyes wide, but not as repulsed as she originally braced herself for. It looked like a bed bath and beyond showroom, the really expensive one too, complete with a real, actual couch that Janis couldn’t wait to jump on. And decorated with such a minimal amount of pink, Janis actually might start liking the color.

 

“You like it, right?” Karen paced around the room, brow furrowed as she looked between Janis and several items in the room, “I told Regina no leather couch because you think any couch that’s not fluffy is pointless, and no curtains on our big window because you like to see out the whole thing, and a round coffee table so you can’t stub your toe and then I think I remembered—”

 

“Woah, woah, woah, hey, I love it,” Janis runs over to grab Karen’s hands to stop her before her tiny brain actually explodes, “You guys did good, don’t worry.” And she sees her let out her first breath. Karen takes some time to give Janis the full tour of their new living room, ad the end up on the couch, giggling.

 

“Ugh, I forgot how grossly cute you two were for a hot sec there,” Regina rolls her eyes, but Janis thinks she hears a smile in her voice, “Jan, I left a space on the wall for you to put that picture.”

 

“What picture?”

 

“The one over there covered in the tarp thing, I think you should hang it there,” she states matter-of-factly, and walks into the living room, “Also, Gretch is downing the last of the wonton soup, so I think we’re gonna need more food. I’ll order a pizza?” She tilts her head and props her hand out, a sight that would send Janis straight back to high school if she weren’t so busy stumbling to the kitchen to see how the fuck two of the tiniest girls she knows could down that much food that fast.

 

Janis shakes it off before turning back to Regina, phone already in hand, “One, you’re paying for pizza since you ate all my dinner, two, did you think that painting might have been covered for a reason?”

 

“Of course, but I forgot to care,” Regina laughs sarcastically, “Really, it’s a good painting and honestly look at the four of us, I think we’re past boundaries in here.”

 

Girl’s got a point. Janis starts to argue back but decides against it, too many things happening at once so quickly in this small space. She peeks back around at Gretchen, “Well, Gretchen, happy to have all my best friends here, you know me, more the merrier, but uh, why exactly, and how? Thought you were still in Chicago.”

 

“I don’t like missing things. Also girl’s night. Also I’m moving here.”

 

“Here?!” Janis screeches, and thinking about her small bed and lack of guest rooms.

 

“Not like here-here, just to the city,” Karen laughs and nudges Janis on the shoulder.

 

“Janis, I know you’re thrilled at the idea of all your favorite girls under your roof all at once, but Gretch is gonna stay with me for now,” Regina smirks.

 

Janis sits back down on the couch while Regina walks into the kitchen to make the phone call for pizza. Janis knows whatever makes Karen happy should make her happy, but Janis really really wishes her little group of friends was dropped promptly after diplomas were given out and left in Chicago. They’re definitely not terrible, not ruthless and horrible and blood-sucking demons anymore, Janis can definitely hold a conversation without rolling her eyes at all, and they’re fine company from time to time, but _still_.

 

She props her feet up on Regina’s brand new coffee table just to see her get angry when she walks back into the room and do her little anger coping method thing she learned at the end of high school that makes Janis laugh. She swings an arm over the back of the couch and around Karen before turning to Gretchen to be a good girlfriend and make nice conversation, “So, any particular reason you’re moving here? New job?”

 

“No. Just didn’t wanna be the only one left behind.”

 

Janis’s eyes widen. “Really? That’s it.”

 

Gretchen hums and nods and Karen smiles up at Janis to say, “It’s like her mid-life crisis!”

 

“Nope, no it’s not,” Janis sighs and tucks Karen’s head down and onto her shoulder, “but good try, babe.”

 

“Regina always thought Cady would move before me, but I think she was really just hoping she would so she could live with her instead,” Gretchen laughs and Karen echoes, but Janis pales.

 

“Caddy’s coming too?”

 

“She’s been saying she’s gonna longer than me, you know, since she’s still trying to get back together with Aaron,” Grecthen rolls her eyes and fake gags, “She could do better.”

 

“Oh, believe me, I know.” Janis sighs, “Try working in the office building next to him for a year. Every day Caddy’s calling me to ask if I’ve seen him, if I could talk to him, find out if he’s with anyone, blah blah blah. Boys are stupid.”

 

“Amen to that! Also, pizza will be here in 20, you’re welcome bitches,” Regina yells and motions for Janis to move over on the couch, “C’mon, if you have to be a part of girls night now, you have to do it right. First rule, I always get the end of the couch and control of the remote.”

 

“Who said I want to be a part of girls night?” Janis furrows her eyes brows and looks over at Regina as she sits down.

 

“Even if you don’t, this is how we need to test you out to see of you’re good enough for Karen,” Gretchen says from her spot with her knees tucked up to her chin on the rug and Janis laughs, but soon realizes no one else is.

 

“Oh, c’mon, for real? You’ve known me since I was 10!” Janis yells.

 

“Only the more reason for us not to trust you!” Regina giggles and curls up into the arm of the couch. Karen comes back after disappearing to the kitchen a few minutes ago, balancing four glasses of wine in her hands, miraculously, and places them all on the table before laying back down on Janis’s side.

 

Janis eyes the girls warily as they all excitedly grab their glasses and face the TV for the movie, “I hate wine.”

 

“Not tonight you don’t!” Regina squeals, “Girls night!” Gretchen and Karen echo her excitedly before they take a sip in sync.

 

“Let me just say,” Janis interrupts, her glass at her lip as they all watch and wait for her to take her first sip, “I refuse to get any closer to Regina on this couch to make room for Caddy, so no one is allowed to tell her our address if she actually makes it here.” 

 

Gretchen loudly awws when Janis says ‘our address’ and smiles at her bestie Karen and Regina tilts her head and makes sure Janis knows that Janis is on Cady duty the second she ever moves because Regina already took care of Gretchen.

 

And as whatever sappy chick-flick starts on the screen, Janis takes a big gulp of her drink, wishing she had something a whole lot stronger.

 

///

 

For what it’s worth, girl’s night isn’t the most terrible thing to happen to Janis since moving (the spider in the shower takes the cake, honestly). The movie isn’t that bad, or maybe Karen’s hands playing with her hair through the whole thing make it bearable, and Regina’s cynical, snarky commentary gives her a good laugh, and the wine does grow on her.

 

But she’s happy when Karen waves them out the door with a bright smile on her face. Janis feels arms wrap around her waist from behind as she washes the last wineglass, and light kisses pressed to her neck, then sighs contentedly and says, “This is sweet and you know I’m weak for neck kisses, but help me dry,” Janis throws the dish towel over her shoulder and hears Karen groan into her shoulder before grabbing it and stepping aside.

 

“Thanks love, you’re the best.”

 

“No you are, didn’t I say that already today?” Karen beams as she reaches up to put the glasses away.

 

“Really?” Janis quirks her head to the side with a smirk and turns off the faucet, “Wanna say that again?”

 

“You’re the bestest.”

 

“Not a word.”

 

“How would I know?” Karen shrugs and laughs, “C’mon, bestest girlfriend of mine, I wanna show you three cool things I did decorating today.” She grabs her hand and drags her towards their bedroom, Janis leaning over to shut the kitchen light quick before being pulled away with a smile.

 

“Okay, close your eyes,” Janis laughs, but Karen insists, so she obliges, feeling Karen place something in her hands “First, I got you… Open!” Karen squeals and claps her hands together.

 

Janis looks down, “A cactus?”

 

“A pet cactus! Isn’t it so cute!” She tries to pet it but decides against it, luckily, and instead just picks up the little pot from Janis’s hands, “If you don’t love him, I will. He’s adorable and Regina said he matches our decorations. Cactuses are very in right now.”

 

“Cacti.”

 

“You what?”

 

“Nevermind,” Janis shakes her head, “I do like him though. Random. But I do like it.”

 

“Thought you would, the sign said, ‘I thrive on neglect’.”

 

“Definitely my kind of pet.”

 

“Okay second!” Karen gets more excited than before, and Janis feels like there is absolutely no purer sight in the world, like, Karen’s face right now could compete with ASPCA commercials at Christmas and she might win. “Wait, get in bed first,” She says.

 

Janis raises her eyebrows, “Woah, what kind of surprise is this now?” She asks with a laugh and starts to slip under the covers.

 

Karen hits her with a pillow and moves towards the doorway, “Close your eyes!” she calls, so Janis does, and gets comfy with the blankets pulls high and rests her head on her pillow. A few seconds pass before Janis feels Karen flop onto the bed next to her. “Okay, open…” She whispers.

 

And Janis does, or at least she thinks she does, but it’s still dark. It takes a second before she looks up, and sees that the lights are off and something is glowing on the ceiling.

 

“Karen, what is—”

 

“Stars, I bought glow in the dark stars!” She says, giddily, snuggling closer to Janis under the covers, “I know how much you like looking at the stars, and we can’t see many here, so I saw these a bought them when Regina wasn’t looking because she said they were tacky. But I love them.”

 

“You put these up for me?”

 

“It was a little tricky, but yeah. Space is like kinda your thing, and I’m kinda in love with you so…”

 

“Wow.” Is all Janis can think of to say as she looks at the glowing little plastic stars on her ceiling. She’s pretty sure if you could make out her face in their dark room, it would be glowing brighter than all those little stars and probably all the real ones too.

 

“It’s like, our own little universe in here,” Karen sighs happily.

 

“It’s perfect. You’re perfect. Have I mentioned that ever? You’re perfect,” Janis rolls onto her side to face Karen.

 

“Really? Wanna say that again?” She says, doing her best (terrible) imitation of Janis’s voice, and giggles, so Janis shuts her up with a kiss.

 

“You know what, I will say it again because Karen Smith, you are quite possibly the most, if not only, bestest perfectest thing in my entire life.”

 

“Oh, look who’s making up words now!” She laughs, pressing their noses together.

 

“I would have a snarky comeback for that but I think something about this lighting is like, weirdly romantic and it’s making me all tingly, so my sarcasm is not up to standard,” Janis finds Karen’s hand somewhere and grabs it, tracing light patterns with her thumb.

 

She doesn’t know how long they stay there, wrapped in their little spacy bliss, Janis spending most of the time looking to Karen’s twinkling eyes, convinced those are the real stars.

 

Janis’s life is a weird mix of mainstream and the furthest from it, but its hers and by some insane twist of fate, it’s Karen’s too, and she’s sure she’d spend every Tuesday night at girl’s night with the ex-plastics if she could have this (the powers that be must really be having a field day with her admitting to _that_.)

 

“Hey,” she says softly, “didn’t you say you had three decorating things to show me?”

 

“Right!” Karen says, and Janis can practically hear her smile, “So third—”

 

“Wait, no eyes closed for this one?” Janis asks, she feels Karen shake her head no.

 

“Third, and probably my favorite out of all the redecorating I’ve done…” She trails off and Janis feels her squeeze her hand tight, “That green sweatshirt of yours? Yeah, I moved it from your side of the closet to mine. I own it now.” She states simply, and Janis gasps, drops her hand and sits up in horror.

 

“What?! No, I love that sweatshirt!!”

 

“Well I’m pretty sure it’s common knowledge that girlfriends get to steal at least one prized article of clothing every month.”

 

“What kind of rule is that?” Janis asks incredulously and Karen sits up with her.

 

“A good one!” She laughs.

 

“You know, I can steal your stuff too.”

 

“You won’t. Way too pink.”

 

“I like pink!” Janis says defensively, and Karen eyes her, “Certain shades of it, at least.”

 

“Fine, fair game—you can steal something of mine.”

 

“Okay, then I choose my green sweatshirt!” Janis yells and falls back onto the bed, pulling Karen down with her, landing on her chest.

 

“Doesn’t work like that!” She giggles, her hair falling around her face, which is just inches away from Janis’s. She feels all the breath escape her lungs.

 

She quirks an eyebrow and gazes into those pretty eyes before whispering, “Alright fine, kiss me and maybe I’ll get over it.”

 

Karen smirks and leans forward, grabbing Janis’s lips with her own.

 

“Okay, I’m over it.”

 

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> omg thank you all for loving this ship as much as i do, precious angels. this is really so fun to write, i have no idea what i'm gonna do next but hats half the fun. thank you all again <3


	3. sparkle pink heart emoji

* * *

 

Over the past few months Janis has definitely become a caller.

 

Phone calls, which she used to hate, are now really the only way she talks to anyone of any importance to her. Appalling, she knows, in the age where everyone has a better relationship with iMessage than they do with their mothers, but Janis found speaking so much better than texting. Damian always picks up on the first ring, the pizza delivery guy never fails, and the only other person she ever wants to talk to...

 

_Palm tree emoji peace sign emoji come pick me up at work! Sparkle pink heart emoji._

 

Janis shakes her head and shoves her phone into her back pocket before pushing open the office building door and stepping out onto the busy city streets. 

 

Janis called Karen at least 3 times a day.

 

Karen didn't pick up Janis's calls at least 3 times a day.

 

But she always left a crisp little palm tree emojifor Janis in her texts when the calls dropped, so who was Janis to say romance was dead, right? Janis would suck it up and send back a shopping cart emoji because _it was just a phone call_  and Karen usually kept up text conversation whenever Janis wanted to talk and Janis knows Karen loves her and whatever and  _it was just a phone call_ but as the weeks pass it gets harder and harder for Janis to not take the constant voicemail greetings at least a little personally. 

 

Karen's depth of knowledge in the area of emojis is unparalleled and spending the better part of your young adult life dating Karen helps the emoji vocabulary quite substantially. (And because of that, Damian knows that Janis knows that there is a distinct difference between the red notebook emoji and the green notebook emoji and doesn't waste time calling her out for her fake "I can't keep up with Karen text" excuses.)

 

And no matter how soft she's gotten since she fell in love with stupid Karen Smith, she will firmly reject any other stupid reason stupid Damian comes up with for why she just wants to stupid talk to Karen on the stupid phone. 

 

No problem at all. It's  _just a phone call._

 

Janis realizes she gets to Tiny Tots Daycare Center to pick up Karen a lot quicker when she doesn't waste time waiting for Karen to pick up the phone. 

 

Her favorite secretary, Tanya, waves her in as she approaches the desk and squeezes the woman's hand with a smile in greeting.

 

"Afternoon Miss Janis, you're here early!"

 

"Yeah, well, someone asked for an early pick up," Janis tilts her head towards the hallway that leads to the kids' rooms.

 

"She got you with the pink heart emoji again? I know you're a sucker for that one," Tanya laughs heartily as Janis blushes and steps under herself, sheepishly pushing her hands into her pockets. 

 

"Remind me to watch what I tell you in confidence next time, okay?"

 

"Ah, you know I love you. I can't pick favorites but—"

 

"But we both know it's me. Always me," Janis smirks and grabs a lollipop from a jar on the desk and starts to inch towards the hall, "And since I'm your favorite of all the girlfriends here, mind if I go down to her room to see her?" 

 

"You do know that you're the  _only_ girlfriend any of our teachers got, right?"

 

"Tanya, I'm telling you, that Megan girl is hiding a girlfriend that we don't know about, my gaydar is never wrong!" Janis whispers, eyes wide and twinkling with mischief as she retreats down the hall with Tanya's bright laugher echoing.

 

Janis doesn't go into Karen's room too often, just waits in the lobby with a lollipop, but if she remembers correctly, it's the third door on the right... And when she hears kids "playing Halloween" in the middle of August, Janis knows she's in the right place.

 

Karen's playroom is as bright and loud as she is, walls bouncing with colors and pictures, toys littering every spare inch of space that doesn't already have a child's body occupying it. All the princess crowns and dinosaur action figures and stuffed animals give Janis a migraine just peeking her head around the doorframe, and then once she steps inside, she feels (or imagines she feels) all the toddler boogers and common colds attacking her immune system fervently. She's convinced it's an honest miracle that daycare instructors and preschool teachers don't all spontaneously combust at least once a week from it all. 

 

Karen doesn't notice Janis for a few moments but Janis doesn't mind, she feels her heart literally skip two beats as she just watches Karen help a little girl strap on a cowgirl hat and bops her on the nose before the girl giggles and runs off to play with a baby doll. And if Damian thinks her phone call thing is sappy, she only imagines what he'd say about the look on her face seeing Karen play with kids. 

 

"Got any extra dress-up hats over there?" Janis calls as she steps further into the room. Karen jumps up quickly, her jaw dropped in that instinctive little beaming smile she does in only 2 scenarios (when she sees Janis and when they announce the new bachelorette). 

 

"You came!"

 

"Course I did, its milkshake Monday," Janis smiles and looks down at the toddler running way too close to her new shoes with an open bottle of glitter glue.

 

"I thought you were mad at me or something because you didn't answer my text."

 

"Yeah, well, you didn't answer my phone call, so now we're even I guess," Janis blurts, more harshly than she intends it to come out, but Karen simply shrugs.

 

"It was snack time. Besides, you're such a grandma with those phone calls anyway. Seriously, who calls anymore?"

 

" _I_  do, and you'd really like talking to me if you tried."

 

"I like talking to you," Karen rolls her eyes and crouches down to pick up some crayons off the floor and onto the kiddie-sized table, "I like talking to you so much that I save it for when it's just me and you so I don't have to use my toddler voice."

 

"What!? They can't understand you, they're like 2!" Janis screeches as she eyes the kids sitting down by the window with coloring books.

 

"Actually they're mostly 4 years old and they love to copy cat," Karen says and steps up to be face to face with Janis before continuing in a hushed whisper, "So I don't think they need to go home and repeat the phrases I would use to describe how I miss you and what I wanna do to you when I get home and how I have trouble forming sentences imagining you in the exact sexy work attire you stand before me in as we speak."

 

Janis feels her cheeks heat up and she bites her bottom lip, "This outfit is actually hideous, but you should still pick up when I call you at least once. Sparkle pink heart emoji." 

 

And just as Janis starts to feel her heart skip another six beats with that look in Karen's eyes, a little boy taps Karen on the leg and ever so gracefully announces "Miss Karen I poo."

 

Karen scoops the toddler up and with a smile says, "I'm gonna go change a diaper, play nice." 

 

Karen scurries off quickly, leaving Janis to fend for herself in the playroom. She wastes some time looking at pictures of the alphabet on the wall (that she knows Karen could not have hung up on her own) and puts a toy monster truck back in its box and doesn't even notice herself slowly end up by the window where she finds the remaining kids coloring. 

 

"Hi!" A little girl shouts, snapping Janis from her quick daydream looking out the window.

 

"Hi," she mimics with similar pep, "Whatcha guys doing?" She uneasily crouches down and tries to get into criss cross applesauce the most graceful way she can maneuver it, and if she fails, the kids don't notice as they're fixated on their giant box of crayons. 

 

"Making pitchers, do you like mine?" The little girl holds up her construction paper art right up to Janis's nose with an excited grin (and Janis laughs knowing Karen definitely taught them the word ‘pitchers’ for pictures). 

 

"Wow, that is SO pretty!" Janis detects some scribble lines that are supposed to be a dog, or a butterfly maybe? And then suddenly all five pairs of chubby little hands are shoving their papers towards Janis to get a similar stamp of approval and it's taking everything inside her not to just log roll out of here. 

 

Janis was never a kid person, if you couldn't tell.

 

"Well, I love to draw too, you guys wanna draw something with me?" Janis grabs a blank sheet of paper and is met with a loud chorus of toddler glee. "What should we draw?"

 

"Bunny rabbit!" "Seahorse!" "Mickey Mouse, please!" "Pretty flowers!" "Oooh oooh a spaceship!"

 

"Okay, okay, let's draw a house! Yeah?" Janis interjects quickly, picking up a brown crayon. She lets out a big deep breath, and god she must love Karen a whole lot. 

 

"First, the actual house, is a biiiiig square, like this," Janis draws 4 lines in the middle of the page and likes how the kids laugh at her tongue sticking out for concentrated effect. 

 

"I think that's actually a rectangle!" One of the girls points to the paper sharply and Janis holds back some words. 

 

"You good at shapes? Okay, you do the roof, Miss Rectangle," Janis hands the girl the crayon and hears some more giggles when the girl points out again that her name is Sophie, not Rectangle.

 

A boy named Jack draws the windows after Janis demonstrates one and they all get a real kick out of the farting noises she makes each time he moves the crayon down. Charlie attacks the sky with a blue crayon and scribble lines that really test Janis because they go way too many directions at once and Abby mimics a similar style for grass. 

 

The girl who called Janis over in the first place, Delaney, crawls over and parks herself directly in Janis's lap with a giggle and grabs some of her hair that falls in front of her face, "Your hair is so pretty, I wanna do mine just like it!" She says, peeking up to Janis. 

 

Janis smiles, instantly remembering how she used to struggle to work up the courage to flirt with Karen over her hair, crazy how the world works. She doesn't notice that she starts smiling until Delaney taps her knee and asks her with a silly smirk why she's smiling like that.

 

"Nothing," Janis brushes it off, but the girl is an intuitive 4 year old, and eyes her on, "Really, just thinking about Miss Karen. When we were little she used to say she thought my hair was really pretty too."

 

"Miss Karen is your friend?"

 

Janis hums agreement, "My very best one."

 

"Then you should play with us every day."

 

"No, silly, I have to go to work!" 

 

"Oh, my mommy and daddy go to work," she muses with pursed lips and then continues, "You're like a mommy?"

 

"Uh," Janis's eyebrows furrow together and her heart clenches, "Nope. I just live with Miss Karen," she lets out in one quick breath. 

 

But the little girl just beams even wider as she looks up at Janis, "That's cool, I love Miss Karen!"

 

"Me too, kid. Me too." 

 

"Can I draw the door?" She switches topics quickly as she picks up a crayon and Janis leans back to let her work on her little rectangular masterpiece. When she finishes, she hands Janis a yellow crayon "for the sun, of course!"

 

"Now  _that_ , you guys, is one good looking house!" Janis cheers and holds up the paper, one arm stretched around the toddler in her lap and the other occupied by the girl holding her hand tightly. The kids clump up around her and on her to get a view of the picture and all talk excitedly at their work. "Should we hang it up?"

 

"No!" Delaney yells, "You hang it up at your house with Miss Karen!" She beams and one of the boys claps in agreement. 

 

"You sure I can keep it?"

 

"If you promise to come play with us more!" 

 

Janis looks at the pleading little eyes around her and laughs, "I would love to play with you guys any day."

 

With that, the kids start attacking another piece of construction paper, Janis having to break up one small fight over the last pink crayon. She sits back and watches the kids play, still slightly terrified of children in general, but very content with where she is right now. 

 

Little Delaney finds her way back to Janis but sits in front of her this time and asks Janis to braid her hair. Janis, though she knows nothing fancier than a plain old braid, happily obliges, and smiles as she lets the girl tell her every detail of her favorite part from the movie "Trolls" (that she thinks she's going to have to suggest to Karen on their next movie night).

 

Sometime between finishing the braid and reluctantly agreeing to let the 4-year-old play with her own hair, Janis is relieved to see Karen walk back through the door. She can't move from her spot as she feels Delaney twist her hair into knots, but sends the blonde a laughing smile from her seat on the carpeted floor. Karen giggles as she joins, "Sorry that took so long, Chris's mom was here to pick him up right after I changed him and then my new shipment of washable markers came in and then I was talking to Tanya and yeah. Busy. But it looks like you kept pretty busy in here too," she chuckles, looking as Janis's pained expression as Delaney pulls her hair together. 

 

"We're having a blast here, aren't we, guys?" Janis yells over to the kids still coloring and they all echo their excitement. 

 

Jack runs over, blue crayon in hand and taps Karen on the shoulder to say, "Miss Karen, we want your friend to come play with us every day!" And some of the kids nod in agreement.

 

"Good draw-er!" Abby yells, not bothering to look up from the masterpiece she's intent on finishing. 

 

"She is a good at drawing, isn't she?" Karen says, in what Janis assumes is the infamous 'toddler voice'.

 

"Well, I had some help," Janis says with a twinkle in her eye, and holds up the picture for Karen to see, "What do you think? Perfect material for our new decorating?"

 

"This is beautiful!" Karen beams and grabs the picture. "What do we say to my friend Janis?" And all the kids chorus together a sweet "thank you!" that keeps Janis's heart skipping beats for hours. 

 

Another woman walks into the room, an instructor, Janis assumes, as Karen gives her a wave before standing up and holding out a hand to help up Janis. But before Janis can start to move, she feels two little arms wrap tightly around her neck from behind.

 

"No, no, stay!" Delaney whines as she hugs Janis. Janis feels her jaw drop in time with her heart, Karen looks like she's seeing a basket of puppies for the first time. 

 

"I had so much fun today and I promise I will come back all the time, but I gotta go home and hang up your picture," Janis says.

 

"But I want you to play with us _now_!" She hugs tighter, and Janis feels herself go soft.

 

She twists around to see the girl’s face and says, "Look, I didn't wanna say this with Miss Karen right here but," she smiles and drops her voice to a whisper as she urges Delaney to lean in closer, "I think you're kind of my best friend now." 

 

The girl gasps and giggles.

 

"Really?"

 

"Really really," Janis says, squeezing the little hands she's holding, "So as best friends, I have to come play with you a few times a week. And you have to keep drawing me pictures to hang up at home and for my desk at work. Deal?" She holds up a hand for a high five, but the little girl just smiles wider and falls into Janis for another hug. 

 

With her little face buried into Janis's long black and bleached hair, she hears her say, "I love you!" 

 

And Janis is so glad Karen cannot see her face for the reaction. She'd never live it down. 

 

"Love you too, kiddo. Now, go play."

 

She stands up quickly and waves as the little girl runs back to color with the other kids, and shakes her head in amazement as she looks back to Karen. Karen, giggling with pride, grabs Janis’s hand and swings it as they walk out of the room.

 

“Oh my god, Kare, can we keep her?”

 

* * *

 

  

“That’s actually the worst thing I’ve ever seen.”

 

“Don’t knock it until you try it.”

 

“It’s inhumane.”

 

“It’s delicious!” Karen yells as she dips her Shake Shack fries into a vanilla milkshake. Janis shudders at the sight. Karen seems to have a thought, raises her eyebrows and holds the fry out to Janis.

 

“Yeah, hard pass babe.”

 

“Janis, you literally cannot live your life without experiencing this at least once.”

 

“I just don’t see how it could possibly taste good. You don’t cross contaminate your sweet with your salty,” Janis pushes Karen’s inching hand away.

 

“You drink the milkshake while eating a burger, what makes this different?”

 

“Is Karen Smith trying to logic with me right now?” Janis laughs, leaning back in her chair.

 

“Shut up and do it, hammer emoji.”

 

“Oh no, not the _hammer emoji_!” Janis feigns fear and Karen rolls her eyes, but reaches the milkshake covered fry back across the table. But when Janis shows no signs of moving, Karen eats the French fry, then fishes through her purse for her phone. She shoots Janis a challenging smirk, then types something into her phone.

 

Janis stares Karen down and she sits, sees the blonde put the phone up to her ear and then…

 

Janis’s phone rings.

 

“Really?” Janis grabs her phone from her pocket and Karen nods.

 

Janis mentally reminds herself that she knew she what she was getting into all those years ago in high school, before picking up her phone.

 

“Hello?”

 

“Try my delicious French fry in a milkshake—”

 

“No.”

 

“Let me finish!” Karen flips her hair behind her shoulder. Then leans an elbow on the table, “Try my French fry, and I will start to pick up your calls.”

 

Janis pales.

 

“You can’t use my weaknesses as a bargaining chip.”

 

Karen laughs as Janis’s face grows even stonier, “C’mon, it was a joke! Damian tells me you only call me so many times because you like the sound of my voice but I know you! You would never—oh.” Karen catches herself when Janis sighs and smirks with the right side of her mouth.

 

Cliché as it may seem, there really is something special about hearing someone who sounds like home.

 

“Listen, Smith, you’re making me really soft all of a sudden—”

 

Karen leans across the tiny table and kisses Janis, quite unexpectedly.

 

“You are quite literally the cutest person alive,” Karen smiles, faces still inches apart, “I am so glad I broke you.”

 

“For real, did you see me actively enjoying my time with children today!” Janis drums her fingers on the table.

 

“I better watch out, you might ask to adopt a puppy soon, or borrow one of my pink dresses.”

 

“Okay, slow down there,” Janis laughs and runs a hand through her hair as Karen sits back down, “Alright, let’s just get this over with.” Janis grabs a French fry from Karen and in one swift movement, before she has time to process the horrible crime she’s about to commit, Janis dips the fry in the milkshake and eats.

 

Karen basically shakes in her seat and joins with a fry of her own, “Ahjjkhaug I love you!” (And yes, her giggling sounds exactly that incoherent to Janis as she slowly chews.

 

“I’m never doing that again,” Janis says, lips puckered and eyes squinting. She makes out the flash of a snapchat Karen takes, still shaking with laughter, and though terrible, finds it impossible not to smile.

 

“That’s so fine by me, this was worth it, pink sparkle heart emoji.”

 

“Yeah, yeah, pink sparkle heart emoji,” Janis wipes her mouth and the little bit of milkshake she spilled on her top with a napkin, “Still think I look hot in this ugly office attire?”

 

“Yes,” Karen Says with a smirk, grabbing her bag to get ready to leave, “But I think after this, I owe you, _and_ no matter how hot you look right now, something tells me those clothes would look a lot better off.”

 

“Okay, gotta stop saying these things when we’re not home and can’t immediately act on them.”

 

“What can I say, I think you broke me too!”

 

* * *

 

Over the past few months, Janis has definitely become a caller thanks to the sweet sound of Karen’s voice. And though that’s almost always the main reason Janis picks up the phone to call, there’s another voice fighting to take Karen’s spot as Janis’s favorite call to pick up.

 

“Hey Delaney.”

 

“Hi Miss Janis.”

 

“What are we playing today?”

 

“Having a tea party, can I save you a seat?”

 

“Wouldn’t miss it.”

 

Karen may say she’s still a texter, but her call history begs to differ.

 

“I’m gonna give miss Karen her phone back now.”

 

“Have fun kiddo,” Janis spins around in her office chair, smiling, as she hears the phone being handed back to its owner, “Thanks for calling.”

 

“Yeah, well someone, not a toddler, really missed your voice.”

 

Janis feels her sparkle pink heart emoji explode.

 

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this took forever i just moved into my freshman year of college- next one will not take as long and be hella cute, love u all xx


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